IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION ON

NARRATIVE TEXT BY USING GIST STRATEGY ON THE

EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF MTS SA ASSHIDDIQI
GLENMORE IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2015/2016

Muhammad Ikhwan Naufal (Corresponding Author)

Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, University of Muhammadiyah Jember,
Jl. Karimata No 49, Jember, East Java, Indonesia
E-mail: opalopel7@gmail.com

Abstract
Reading skill is needed by students to improve their knowledge and other English skills
and components. Reading enables people to find out information from a variety of texts,
written or printed information in the forms of newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and
brochures. In the teaching and learning reading comprehension process, Most of students got
difficulties in comprehending the text. The students did not know the meanings of many
words that appeared in text.The students often got confusion toward word meaning of the
unfamiliar word. As a result, a lot of students have low scores on English. The solution to
improve students’ reading comprehension is by using GIST Strategy. It useful to identify or
generate main ideas, connect the main or central ideas, eliminate redundant and unnecessary
information, help students remember what they read, and record a summary of the material
they just read.
In this research, the problem is “How can GIST Strategy improve the VIIIA grade
students reading comprehension narrative textVIIIA grade of MTs SA Asshiddiqi Glenmore
in the 2015/2016 Academic Year. The research objective is intended “To improve students’
reading comprehension on narrative text the VIIIA grade students of MTs SA Asshiddiqi
Glenmore in the 2015/2016 Academic Year.
The design of the research is classroom action research. The research covered four
stages of activities, they are planning of the action, implementing of the action, observing of
the action, and reflecting of the action.The research subject is VIIIA classbecause their
reading comprehension still low, which consist of 25 students and to obtain the research data
instrument used test and observation.
The result of the score analysis, the percentage of students who score >70 was 52% in
the first cycle. It means that the score of cycle one was not achieved the criteria of success.
Therefore, it was necessary to continue the action into cycle two with some modification in
implementing the action. The result of reading comprehension on narrative text test in second
cycle was 100% of the students could achieve the target score. It was not necessary to
continue the action into next cycle because more than 70% students could achieve the target
score. Finally,the use ofGIST Strategy could improve students’ reading comprehension on
narrative text the VIIIAgrade students of MTs SA Asshiddiqi Glenmore in the 2015/2016
Academic Year by picking out the W+H questions (who, what, when, where, why and how)
of the paragraph related important information.

Key Words : GIST Strategy, Reading Comprehension on Narrative Text.

1. Introduction
Reading skill is needed by students to improve their knowledge and other English
skills and components. Reading enables people to find out information from a variety of
texts, written or printed information in the forms of newspapers, magazines,
advertisements, and brochures.Reading comprehension is an active process to construct
the meaning and the understanding about the text, Schramm (2008:231). In reading
activity, we are not only reading the text, but also trying to understand what we are
reading. Moreover we do not only want to get some information or knowledge but also
an enjoyment. Ability or skill of comprehending a message in the text is the goal of
reading in a language instruction.
Based on Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan/KTSP (2006) “KD 11.2
Merespon makna dalam teks tulis fungsional pendek sederhana secara akurat, lancar
dan berterima yang berkaitan dengan lingkungan sekitar”.It means thatthe students are
expected to be able to construct the meaning and the understanding about the narrative
text. They can get the purpose or meaning and comprehend some text types in teaching of
readingAccording to Harmer (1998: 69), students need to be able to do a number of
things with a reading text. They need to be able to scan text for particular bits of
information they are searching for. So when they met some references, they know what
they refer to.
Based on score analysis, there are some problems in teaching reading
comprehension. Most of students got difficulties in comprehending the text. The students
did not know the meanings of many words that appeared in text. It means that the
students did not have background knowledge about the materials, so they got difficulty to
activate the schemata in reading. They had limited prior knowledge with the text
discussed in the class. The lecturer also did not give more practice for breading the text.
As a result, they did not comprehend the content of the text. Therefore, student’s reading
comprehension was low.
As the result from the observation above, to solve the problem of students’
reading ability, the teacher must have an appropriate strategy of teaching to help the
students learn English, especially in reading and to make the teaching learning process
more interesting. One of the teaching strategies that is considered useful and it involves
students’ prior knowledge, synthesizing and generalizing cognitive operation is
Generating Interaction between Schemata and Text (GIST) strategy. GIST strategy is
useful to identify or generate main ideas, connect the main or central ideas, eliminate
redundant and unnecessary information, help students remember what they read, and
record a summary of the material they just read. In this strategy there are ways to get the
gist of the text, there are skimming and scanning, Brown (2000;308) said that skimming
and scanning gives the readers the advantages of being able to predict the purpose of the
passage, main topic or massage that possibly developing or supporting the ideas.

2. Methodology
In this research a classroom action research design was chosen for this study to
improve student’s reading comprehension on narrative text by using GIST Strategy of
MTs SA Asshiddiqi Glenmore in 2015-2016 academic years.
This classroom action research was conducted collaboratively with the English
teacher which was focused in an action when teaching learning process and it is to
overcome the student’s problem in writing skill.
Kemmis and Mc Taggart (in Arikunto, 2010:137) stated that the classroom action
research design has four stages in each cycle. They are (1) planning, (2) acting, (3)
observing, (4) and reflecting.
 The population of this research is the eighth grade student at MTs SA Asshiddiqi
Glenmore which consists of 25 students divided into 16 male and 9 female. The subjects
are taken by using purposive sampling. the subjects are chosen based on the
consideration that their reading comprehension needed to be improved since their
reading comprehension score in the preliminary study was only 36% students got ≥ 70
which is the minimum score for all English skills set by teachers.
The research instruments used in this research were reading comprehension test
and observation checklist. The test was used to measure the students’ reading
achievement. Observation was used to get the data about the teaching and learning
reading comprehension process in the classroom.
3. Findings
The result of observation checklist
The observation was done to get the primary data of the research, which was the
students’ active participation. The observation was used to record the students’
participation during the teaching and the learning process of teaching reading
comprehension narrative text by using GIST Strategy. The indicators included (1) the
students pay attention to the teacher’s explanation, (2) the students asking questions to
the teacher, (3) the students raise their hands to answer the teacher’s questions, and (4)
the students answer the worksheet of narrative text.

The Percentage Table of Students’ Active Participation 1

Indicator Percentage Active passive

1 48% 13 from 25 students 12 from 25 students or
2 28% or 52% are 48% are categorized
3 88% categorized active. passive.
4 88%

In the first meeting of cycle 1, There were only 12 students or 48% the students
active in paying attention to the teacher’s explanation, 7 students or 28% the students
asking questions to the teacher, 22 students or 88% the students raise their hands to
answer the teacher’s questions, and in the second meeting there were 25 students or
100% the students take individual quizzes. In this cycle there were 13 students or 52 %
students of the whole students categorized active in class because they fulfilled at least
three of four indicators.

The Percentage Table of Students’ Active Participation 2

Indicator Percentage Active passive

1 92% 20 from 25 students 5 from 25 students or
2 36% or 80% are 20% are categorized
3 88% categorized active. passive.
4 100%

There were 23 students or 92% the students active in paying attention to the
teacher’s explanation, 9 students or 36% the students asking questions to the teacher, 22
students or 88% the students raise their hands to answer the teacher’s questions, and in
the second meeting there were 25 students or 100% the students take individual quizzes.
 In this cycle there were 20 students or 80 % students of the whole students categorized
active in class because they fulfilled at least three of four indicators.

The result of reading comprehension test

The reading comprehension narrative text test was administered to measure the
students’ reading comprehension. The average score of the students’ reading
comprehension narrative text test results was 63.76.

The Percentage Table of Students’ Score Result 1

Score Number of student Percentage

≤ 70 12 Students 48%

≥ 70 13 Students 52%

Based on the result of reading comprehension narrative text test in cycle 1, there
were 13 students of 25 students who got 70.

The result of the students’ reading comprehension narrative text test in cycle two

The Percentage Table of Students’ Score Result 2

Score Number of student Percentage

≤ 70 0 Students 0%

≥ 70 25 Students 100%

It indicated that the actions given in cycle 2 had been successful in achieving the
target score of the reading comprehension narrative text test. Here the tabel of
improvement percentage students’ reading comprehension narrative text test score
achievement from preliminary study to cycle 2.

4. Discussion
Based on the research result in chapter IV after implementing the actions in cycle
one and cycle two, that was teaching reading comprehension by using GIST Strategy, it
was found that there was a gradual improvement on the students’ reading
comprehension. It could be said that teaching reading comprehension by using GIST
Strategy could improve the students’ reading comprehension in narrative text. The results
of this action research in two cycles had also verified the action hypotheses that GIST
Strategy can improve the VIIIA students’ reading comprehension at MTs SA Asshiddiqi
Glenmore in the 2015-2016 academic years.
5. Conclusion
The use of GIST Strategy can improve the reading comprehension on narrative
text by making a short summarize after read the text, the students take the important
information by W+H questions then makes summarize to get the message of the text by
using their own word. With this strategy the students could more understand about the
 text that they read, so they can more easily to find out the answer of the narrative text
questions.

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